flypig.co.uk

Location

Thoughts and things I think are important

From this page you can read about my thoughts and opinions on various things. At the moment there are only a few here, but they're things which I think are very important.

Click on the links below to read more and please remember that they constitute only my personal opinions.

Printing without pressing

I recently had my first real experience of the 3D printing press by turning a 3D model into physical reality using the Shapeways 3D printing service.

The potential that 3D printing affords is nothing short of mind-blowing. Not only does it allow you to turn ideas into physical reality just by prodding a computer screen, it even allows you to create objects that would be practially impossible to create any other way.

Anyone can use Shapeways to print their objects in 3D. It's such an exciting technology that I coudn't help write a short description of my experiences with it.

Sparky the Dragon

Joanna's been asking to have a baby red dragon for a present for every birthday and Christmas for several years now. With the release of the Pleo, it finally looks like it might be possible to fulfil her wish. The result of my attempt to do this is Sparky the Dragon.

ID cards

In July 2002 the government released a consultation document in an attempt to gauge the public mood on compulsory identity cards. I am personally quite worried about the civil liberty implications, but after some thought decided that there might be a way of using asymmetric encryption techniques to avoid some of the biggest problems. The result of these musings can be found in the PDF document below. There is also a ZIP archive containing an example implementation of the system which I talk about, and this will run under both RISC OS and Windows (2000/XP).

In spite of what I discuss in the document, I still feel that any form of ID card would be an unnecessary interference into people's lives, largely because it will inevitably be tied to a national identification database.

The consultation process ended some time ago now. The results of the consultation process could be seen on the home office's Identity Card page (archived version), which is now defunct. Some of this information may still be accessible from the Official Documents Archive. Unfortunately the government is now committed to introducing ID cards and a national ID database.

Invasion of Iraq

An attack on Iraq by Britain and the United States has seemed imminent for some time now and my pacifist beliefs mean that I am deeply opposed to any conflict like this. I have written to the government on a couple of occasions to explain and justify my feelings and here you'll find copies of these letters and the replies which I received back from them.

Even if you do not agree with me, the replies contain a lot of useful information which many people may find interesting. I am very grateful to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for allowing me to reproduce their correspondence here.

Afghanistan conflict

Before Iraq, Britain and the United State's aggression was directed towards Afghanistan and it's easy to forget that the conflict is still continuing. At the outset of the conflict I placed a statement about the war on this site, detailing how I felt about it; and in fact I still feel the same way now.